Crop wild relatives (CWR) are wild plant taxa closely related to a crop. They represent an important source of genetic diversity for the improvement of agronomic traits. In the context of the One Health Initiative, temperate fruit trees are essential for human nutrition and health, yet CWR resources have hitherto been underused. Moreover, fruit tree long lifespan and a current production dominated by a few cultivars make them particularly vulnerable to the effects of global changes. To address this challenge, the FRUITDIV project will monitor, characterise, use, and conserve the diversity of emblematic fruit tree CWR, with a particular emphasis on Malus, Pyrus and Prunus. To better characterise the genetic and phenotypic diversity of CWR fruit trees and identify favourable traits for future introgression into cultivars, FRUITDIV will use a combination of floristic, ethnogeography and population genomics on genebanks and historical European hotspots of diversity. We will then develop new multiomics-based breeding strategies that combine marker-assisted introgression for traits of interest (e.g. resilience, resistance to pests and diseases, fruit quality) with pangenomic prediction and a reduction of CWR-associated genetic load. In addition to breeding programs, FRUITDIV will also work with networks of farmers and associations to help characterise CWR progeny in various pedo-climatic conditions in Europe. An European-wide online platform that provides genotyping and phenotyping data for free will be implemented to promote the use of CWR genitors by breeders and farmers and help disseminate plant material of interest for various usages and cultivation systems. Overall, the FRUITDIV multi-actor approach involving geneticists, forestry officers, germplasm curators, farmers and citizens, will foster the in- and ex-situ conservation of CWR and promote sustainable agricultural practices across Europe.

The overall objective of GALILEO is to rely on genuine Multi-Actor Approaches (MAA) to co-develop context-specific, people-centered agroforestry innovations in representative agro-pastoral, agroforestry, and agro-silvo-pastoral systems from Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The aim is to promote agroforestry as leverage to significantly improve agricultural, household, and climate change adaptation and mitigation performances and to enhance biodiversity in SSA. We build upon 8 agroforestry Living Labs (LLs: local scale and actors), 4 national and 1 regional Innovation Platforms (IPs), set up across 4 AU SSA countries. Our LLs are set in semi-arid zones of Senegal and Kenya and normally humid but drought-prone zones of Ghana and Cameroon thus comparing and covering a large range of SSA conditions. Through MMA, we co-construct potentially adoptable scenarios ex-ante with Innovator, Target, and Control actors in our LLs, then implement, assess, and compare performances in their pilot plots during the whole project. We use field observations also to calibrate process models, able to simulate under future CC scenarios. After full multi-criteria and trade-off analysis, we finally co-select the most effective scenarios ex-post. We thus rely on transdisciplinary research, providing qualitative and quantitative data on the biophysical, socio-economic, and environmental performances. Such adoptable agroforestry innovations will also enable farmers/pastoralists and stakeholders to diversify their incomes from new agroforestry value chains, of which 2 are GALILEO-original. They will also benefit from carbon farming and payment for ecosystem services opportunities. Through our IPs, we also engage in solid MAA collaborations and policy dialogues to first identify bottlenecks and second elaborate guidelines, and policy recommendations, helping towards strengthening their local innovation ecosystems, under a favorable institutional and policy framework.

SAFE will promote positive and practical valorization of reclaimed urban wastewater as a valuable alternative source for agricultural purposes. SAFE will provide a multi-beneficial approach with novel, unconventional and environmental decentralized wastewater solution that will be respectful of environment and biodiversity of the agro-system. SAFE will optimize the proposed water reuse strategies, ensuring their safety (both for environment and human health), their sustainability, adaptation to water scarcity, local conditions, and farms necessities, boosting the local economy. Main specific objectives are: ● Development, test and validation of novel low cost and low energy urban decentralized wastewater treatments aimed at enhanced renewable water supply. ● Evaluation of wastewater treatments impact in plants/crops performance using modern -omics tools. ● Evaluation of local biodiversity and co-benefits. ● Promotion of environment respectful practices like pest management by biofertilizers such as Trichoderma sp., including knowledge transfer for their practical implementation. ● Safety evaluation related to the proposed approaches, including monitoring of emerging pollutants, in water, soil and produced crops. ● Development of general management models able to simulate local and decentralized agro-ecological practices in several scenarios. ● Optimization of implemented approach in terms of techno-economic analysis, environmental impact and local feasibility. ● Local promotion of the proposed solutions both in terms of farmers’ acceptability and valorization of their economic value. SAFE advanced and sustainable wastewater treatment strategies include the use of natural solutions such as constructed wetlands (UM), high rate anaerobic bioreactors (IRSA-CNR), adsorption on natural-based materials (UNIBAS), local biochar (CERTE, FSS) and pillared clays with organic and/or mineral compounds (UDL). Reuse will be ensured by a complete effluent characterization before and after any considered treatment including any parameters required by the present legislation for water reuse and even assessing emerging pollutants (UM, ICRA, CERTE), pathogens (UNIBAS, SAPIENZA, UDL). The reaction path of target compounds in the irrigation system water-soil-plant (CERTE) will be followed at macroscopic scale, focusing mainly on salt, nutrients and biodiversity evolution. In this context, SAFE partners will perform identification of genes and molecular markers (ELGO – Dimitra) linked to yield and boundary condition (such as drought or salt abiotic stresses) and promoting root branching and increasing shoot biomass by Trichoderma species (UNIBAS). An integrated water balance supported by techno-economic analysis (UNIBAS, SAPIENZA), and specific characterization of the soil (UNIBAS) will allow the optimization of the irrigation and storage strategies for the target sites (IVA Rabat). Modeling and following optimization by mean of modern tools (SAPIENZA) will conduct to the choice of the best approach suitable to be implemented. Collected data will provide a validation in a real environment of the developed SAFE methodology as a general tool suitable to be applied in other Mediterranean areas where water scarcity and climatic conditions play a strong role for agriculture practice. Environmental and human health risk assessment (ICRA) of irrigation practices will be performed based on the characterization of water (IVA Rabat), soils, and plants (tomatoes, oregano, and lettuce as reference) and tested on site (Tunisia, France, Greece and Algeria). Multi-disciplinarity of SAFE partners gives a holistic approach (knowledge advancement and know-how transfer of innovative treatments developed, tested and on site validated) able to provide integrated procedures to increase crop yields and farmers’ incomes. The new farming system will consider the impact of proposed new practices on biodiversity and whole ecosystem (water, energy, soil fertility, crop yields).

FESTA has the overall objective to foster local energy investments on public buildings (primarily in schools, a significant target in Italy for energy efficiency) and to spread the PPP approach also through the innovative, for the context, Energy Performance Contracts (EPC) in convergence regions. The main specific objectives of the proposed action are: 1. to define technical, financial, legal and administrative specifications of a package of investments that are economically sustainable and attractive for private investors; 2. to assess a PPP scheme and to define an EPC model for the energy efficiency of public buildings, also to create better condition to renewal this aged (> 30 years) buildings; 3. to publish the call for tender and to procure the bundled investments through EPC and sign the investment contracts; 4. to become a best practice for the mobilisation of local energy investments of the area where municipalities are preparing the SEAPs (Province of Matera – leader of this project – is the coordinator); 5. to share all this advances with local actors and other MLEI European partners. Specifically, the project (regarding a complex of schools in Matera and in Policoro with the neighboring hospital) aims to experiment, with technological and method approaches, the achievement of the objective that all schools in the area become “climate neutral” by 2020. The project also aim to generate capacity building in the field of renewable energy and energy saving through: • the inter-institutional collaboration between different public authorities to increase the interventions scale (that is very important considering both the small average size of the local administrations and the low population density); • the development of approaches that pay special attention to the potential of the PPP in the field of energy; • better understanding of the features that this kind of projects should have in order to be attractive to both lenders and ESCOs.